A Midsummer Night's Scream

'I just estimated.'Nineteen

Mel worked late Tuesday evening. He was determined to get through all the piles of paperwork he'd sorted. When it was done, he went to Mc-Donald's for a burger and fries. Since the food wasn't interesting, merely filling, he let his mind wander over what he knew. He was as certain as he could be that the death of Denny Roth and the attack on Sven Turner were related.

Sven had called his boss that night and said he'd do the theater early in the morning because he heard people talking inside. Maybe he had recognized the voices. Maybe he knew who both were. Was the other one 'rabbit'?

Maybe Sven had even heard the sound of something crashing. The blow that killed Denny Roth.

But there was no point in waiting for Sven to come fully to his senses. He might never remember, nor be able to speak clearly enough to be un?

derstood except for that one word he'd gathered all his strength to say repeatedly.

Mel needed desperately to know more about Denny and still couldn't reach his parents. The local officer was getting as tired of checking their house as Mel was of perpetually trying to reach them by phone. Often the victim of a crime was the key to who perpetrated it. But Denny, so far, was a cipher. Maybe something would turn up soon that would be helpful. Some old bitter enemy who had tracked Denny down in Chicago, perhaps.

His only suspect was Professor Imry. And Mel couldn't convince himself that Imry was guilty. He was sly, ambitious, and tactless. Not a likeable person. But that didn't mean he was a killer who could go haywire over someone correcting his grammar.

Mel wouldn't have minded suspecting John Bunting, even though there was no reason to. He was a drunk and a lech. He'd also based his lifelong career on the skills of his wife. Without her, he'd have been nothing.

A man of his age who ignored his only daughter and his grandchildren was slime. It would be a joy to put him away for good. And probably a relief to his wife. Ms. Bunting had been chained to him her whole adult life, having to support him by her own talent and hard work, he suspected.

He sat up straighter. Why not give his interviews with Bunting's old friends a quick review?

The men he'd spoken to about Bunting's alibi really had very little to say about him. They were clearly more in touch with each other and only saw him infrequently, on the rare occasions when he visited Chicago. None of them had much in common with him except the schools they'd gone to so many decades ago. Perhaps they merely put up with him when he wanted to get together with them.

He riffled through his paperwork on the telephone interviews he'd had with each of them. He was right. They talked about each other. Nobody had much to say about Bunting himself, except that they'd played golf with him one day, with a lunch afterward, and had a dinner with him as well.

It was Mel's own fault that he hadn't asked the right questions. The old boys were interesting and he'd let them off too easily. Because they were so old? No. None of them, however feeble in body, had seemed to have lost their wits and ambitions.

He'd interview them again, focusing on what they really thought about the actor. It might be useless. Or it might not be. Bunting wasn't a good man. Maybe he was a worse man than Mel knew. Or maybe not.

Of all the old friends of Bunting's he'd inter?

viewed before, the canniest was the attorney who was still going into the office, meddling. He'd succinctly answered the questions Mel asked and hadn't volunteered a single extra word.

Mel would make an appointment in the morning to see him in the office he still maintained.

The lawyer, Irving Walsh, welcomed him to his office Wednesday morning and asked a secretary to bring along coffee. 'Do you mind if I smoke a cigar while we talk? I'll open a window if you wish.'

'I like the smell of a good cigar, but have never smoked one. Please go ahead,' Mel replied. He really hated the smell of cigars but wanted Walsh to be relaxed and content to talk.

When the secretary had left the coffee, a brand as expensive as the cigar, Mr. Walsh said, 'We've spoken before, but on the phone. What more do you want to know?'

'There was a question I asked everyone else and neglected to ask you. After the dinner with your old friends and John Bunting, did you all leave the establishment together?'

Walsh picked up a silver-plated pen knife to cut the end off his cigar. When it was lighted and he had politely opened a window and turned on a small fan blowing toward the window, he said, 'As a matter of fact, we didn't. John Bunting left early. He said his wife was waiting up for himand made a feeble joke about what a tight rein she kept on him.'

'Did you happen to notice the time he left?'

'About an hour or forty-five minutes before the rest of us called it a night. Maybe about ten or a little earlier. I'd told my driver to pick me up at eleven.'

'Are you certain of this?'

'Why wouldn't I be?'

'Because I asked the rest of the group you were with, and every one of them said you'd all left together and chatted on the sidewalk as your drivers arrived.'

'They all had far more to drink than I did,' Walsh said, fiddling with the growing ash on his cigar. I haven't had a single glass of anything alcoholic for years. Maybe they really thought he was still with us.'

'Perhaps,' Mel said. 'Do you like John Bunting?'

'Why do you ask?'

'It's my job to ask nosy questions.'

Walsh smiled. 'So was it my job at one time. I'm still in the habit. No, I don't like him. The rest of us had the benefit of a good education and, I admit, family ties that helped us out. John has ridden on his wife's coattails, so to speak, for his entire adult life. If it weren't for her charm, talent, and hard work, he'd be out of work and broke. Or even dead by now. And unlike the rest of us, he

never talks about his daughter or grandchildren. He seems to have no interest in them.'

'That's my impression as well, and the opinion of a friend of mine who knows them slightly,' Mel admitted. 'Do the rest of your old friends feel the same way about him?'

'Most of them. Except for Ed Kolwalski. He and Bunting were always in touch. Even in college, they stuck together. I suspected, but won't go on the record, that Ed was supplying Bunting with drugs from his dad's pharmacy. It might have just been vitamins, but they were so furtive about it that it made me wonder if it was something stronger.'

'Do you think Kowalski still does this?'

Walsh nodded. 'I'll deny I said this if this comes to court, but Ed passed a bottle of something to Bunting the night we got together. They were sitting next to each other, but I was on the other side of Ed and saw it changing hands.'

'Thank you,' Mel said. 'And I'll try to use this, if I need to, without using your name.'

'That will be tricky.'

'It will. But I might not be required to use the information. Or you might like to testify if we need you